


A New Dawn

by NyxEternal



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Children, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, New Orleans, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2020-12-28 02:17:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21129140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxEternal/pseuds/NyxEternal
Summary: Alice McEvans was ready to retire; to take her family somewhere far from the memories, the ash, the burning, the decay. But it seems that she has one last appointment with Death. Will she survive, or will what started twenty years ago finally end in her demise?





	1. Still Alive

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is entirely based on a roleplay with my partner. I wasn't even sure I was going to share this with the public, but I decided fuck it, why not.

Alice leaned against the little baby blue Chevy as she waited for the gas pump to stop. Over the top of her car, she saw the street, damn near deserted at this time of night. With only a couple hours ‘till she got home, she was glad for it. Was there anything more refreshing that a quiet stretch of road at night? Only the driver and the radio, into those endless shadows beneath the moon and stars.

She ran her fingers through her hair and exhaled, a smile tugging at her lips. When was the last time she saw her family? Thirteen years now? She was excited. Excited at what it would _mean_.

The pump jerked, making her jump. _Too familiar. Things that bump in the dark. Groaning, gasping, hissing, grasping, clawing—_

It would all be over soon. She could wash away the nightmares, drown them in cheap liquor and hot bubble baths that smelled sickly sweet, to wash out the stench of decay. The light at the end of the tunnel was waiting for her…

In Paris. She would surprise them with plane tickets; she already decided that when she told Jason where she was going. She begged him to come with her, but in the end, his choice was his own. She had to expect it would happen someday.

Even still, separation burned like a mother fuck. Since she found out about their connection, since she learned who they were, she tried to not stray from his side. In all the craziness, in all the Hell she walked, there was Jason. She loved him in a way that was hard to name, hard to quantify. It wasn’t romantic love, but not familial either, and certainly not platonic. It was just love; love so pure and unfiltered that it felt like, when they were apart, part of her soul was missing.

She made her choice to learn to live with that pain. If he felt it, too, he could follow her. She chose to leave it all behind, even if that meant leaving him, too. Maybe someday they would see each other again, but this was something she had to do. She was ready to write her final chapter.

Alice got in her car and checked her phone. Speak of the devil. Jason had texted her, asking if she was okay, where she was, and the general milling of a sibling fussing after another. She beamed as she replied before taking a sip of her coffee. Cold hazelnut and vanilla coffee tasted terrible, but god did she need the caffeine.

The car came alive with a rumble, and the radio clicked to life, echoing out the somber, lyrical tunes of a song she’d stumbled on a couple weeks prior that she felt to be _too_ fitting for her. She turned up the radio and quietly sang along as she pulled out of the gas station, her pale, thin hands gripping the steering wheel tighter than they should, pale nails chipped and brittle from years of chewing at them.

After an entire day of driving, and the sudden encroaching exhaustion, the night began to play tricks on her. Whispered memories danced across her vision. Blood, guts, screams, monsters, dead friends.

She swallowed, hard.

In truth, if she truly gave it some thought? She was fucking terrified of what she would find when she got home. When she told her mother she was coming to see them, she had to give her the address to a safe house. Hurricane season had brought a fresh hell that the city was, regrettably, used to. _Hurricane Anastasia_. Alice almost laughed at the name.

Her mother had warned her, _be careful, Alice. It isn’t safe, Alice. This really isn’t a good time. I love you, dear._ If she didn’t know any better, it almost sounded like goodbye.

Hurricane Anastasia had been big, per the reports. A margin bigger than Katrina, according to most. Some claimed her to be just as destructive, if not more so. She was nothing to laugh at, but Alice could only think to the names she took to protect herself, or to gain extra pull where she thought it convenient.

Each name, a different woman. Each, tied to another person in the world. Her way of keeping a connection, even when the person was gone. Even when the _connection_ was gone. Friends—No. Family. Those people were her _family_.

They had been, once, at least. Now, most of them were just names, etched into her skin to form stars stretching across her back. She came a long way from the fresh-faced rookie in over her head, from the girl who knew next to nothing about combat.

She looked every bit the retired soldier now. Ink on her arms, on her back. Muscle that, someday, would go soft, and god she wanted that.

_“—Yeah, I just wanna take you home. Hold on, I still want you—“_

Alice turned off the radio as she realized the song that was playing, swallowing hard again as tears formed in her eyes. Funny, how just a couple of lines in a song could do that. Or rather, how they could bring forth memories she would much rather stay buried.

Warm hands that held her tight, and soft kisses. Fate had a way of pulling her out of his arms again and again. She tried, god did she try, to return, to come back to him, but—

“Turn left,” chimed the voice of her GPS. The high beams of her car disappeared down the endless darkness of the winding driveway of the safe house, shrouded by walls of trees that stretched up and across, grasping each other’s branches in an elegant, natural embrace. At closer to midnight than she was comfortable with – 10:47 p.m. – Alice felt uneasy staring into the void in front of her. The address was right, if her GPS was to be believed, but this did not look like the entrance to a safe house.

A rabbit hole of horror, maybe, was more appropriate. It reminded her too much of that night, of the places she’d been. It was too far from the city, too far from humanity. Maybe that was what made it safe?

She eased her foot off the brakes and let her car creep forward, exhaling slowly. All around her, the night seemed still. Unholy. _Wrong_ in every sense of the word, like an eerie darkness in a church that didn’t belong. Not unlike that night at Arklay mansion twenty years ago, as endless as it seemed at the time.

Almost as if thinking of the name, the memories crashed into in a flood. Every muscle in her body ached that night. Relief, panic, worry, fear. Enrico. _Enrico!_ All the dead friends she saw, all the monsters. The smell of death clung to her skin, even now, years removed from the carnage.

Everything she knew about herself died in that mansion; destroyed with it in the flames, in the miserable hope that she could remake herself amongst the ashes. What had been was a fool, if she was being honest. A fool fucked up in the head who just never knew when to die.

After Arklay, she fled to New Orleans for a time. By the time she got back, there was no Raccoon City. Safer that way, someone told her. She fell into Jason’s arms, sobbing about all she had lost. Memories that were now ghostly figures in the rubble.

She never did get into contact with Enrico’s wife, like he had asked her to before Bravo team went out. All the same, someone, even so loosely attached, needed to get away without any connections. Sure as hell wasn’t going to be her, despite how hard she tried.

Alice Evangeline McEvans always claimed she was good at one thing: Running away. It was a special skill, one she gained when she ran away from Morgan all that time ago. Morgan was so distant in her memory now. A bad dream, really. If he never existed, then neither did his sins.

She ran away from Raccoon. Ran away from Chris and Jill and Barry. Ran away from S.T.A.R.S.

But she could never run away from _Umbrella _or _Tricell_. No, never from the big, looming influence. Never the bastards who ruined her life. The horror she survived had etched itself into her DNA, or maybe destiny had put it there when she was conceived, preparing her for the trauma and nightmares.

Umbrella was gone now, supposedly, like Raccoon City was gone. It lived on as a bitter memory burned into her mind, into her skin, into her soul. She even got their symbol etched into her skin, with some black, decaying _necrotic bullshit_ climbing out from the center and reaching for the edges. A perfect symbol for what Umbrella _actually_ was.

She shook her head again, fighting back the burn of tears in her eyes. At over forty, Alice McEvans was fucking _tired_. She played this apocalyptic game for twenty years and kept losing. So, what did she do when she decided enough was enough?

It was fitting, she supposed. The plane tickets sat in her glovebox, ready for the family to go. Paris, then starting over. A new life, free from Umbrella’s remains and the memories, free from the T-Virus – or was it now the C-Virus? — and everything it brought to ruin her life.

Freedom, and a new life. It tasted like ash, filling her mouth and making it dry. Her stomach twisted, _roiled_ as she wanted to throw up at the thought of erasing it all. Not that she ever could, of course. She joined up with the BSAA.

How could she not? She had been at ground zero when it began, been part of the team back then—

Jason and her fought for days, but eventually, he joined, too. Pulled each other out of the fire more times than either could count. The Twins, people started calling them. They’d often share a knowing laugh, but otherwise, kept to only themselves.

And, maybe, a choice few others.

As the trees ended, her high beams caught the porch of the old plantation home. Chipped paint, an overturned rocking chair, a busted piece of railing. Wind damage? It was possible—

The light caught the busted and open door and her heart sank like a stone, deep into her stomach with a sharp pain. She fought the urge to scream, to cry, to just slam the gas and end it all here and now. But that would be letting Umbrella and everything it stood for win. Even if they’d been taken down years ago, there was still the _memory_.

She wanted nothing more than to erase their stain on the world. To scrub it all away, clean the sins, the disease, the _decay, _until there was nothing fucking left. To make them disappear, once and for fucking all.

With that in mind, she grabbed her gun from the glove box and checked the ammo. She could hope for the best all she wanted, but she had to be practical. Somehow, Umbrella’s _curse_ had found her backyard, she was sure of that much. Their foul and rotten fingers dug into the land of her home, and ripped out the foundation, the earth, the _life_ in it, leaving rot and muck in place of beauty and life.

She just prayed salvation had not come too late for the ones she loved.


	2. Night Terror

Caleb leaned his head back against the counter as he gripped his grandfather’s shotgun, holding it across his chest, and took mental stock of what he had on him. Gun, a machete he found in his grandfather’s room, and a backpack his grandmother had packed for him. Six bottles of water, three full boxes of protein bars and a pack of jerky. Neosporin, bandages, emergency sewing kit, and an odd assortment of painkillers and other odds and ends for emergency medical use.

Everything he’d need in case of the apocalypse for a day or so.

Didn’t surprise him, really. His grandparents were always the ultra-prepared type. All his life, he could remember waking up to his grandfather watching the news. In the office, he kept files and a big book on something called the T-Virus, and Umbrella, and documents about some guy named Morgan Harrelson. Caleb tried not to pry, but he was a curious kid. How could he not instantly want to know? For most of it, his grandfather didn’t even mind all that much. He even encouraged him.

Only two files were off limits to him. Project Adam and Eve, and one only labeled Project W. Both were thin files; maybe a page or two each. But the one glimpse he caught of Project Adam and Eve had his grandfather snatching it out of his hand and locking both up in a safe.

It all seemed so far away when he was a kid. A horror movie for _someone_ else to live, that he got to enjoy. The T-Virus turned people basically into zombies. What wasn’t cool about that idea?

When Hurricane Anastasia swept in, she brought more than just the usual carnage. No one knew exactly how it started, or what started it. Infected dogs wandered the streets, half-dead and hungry. When they first appeared on the news sites, his grandfather knew what they were right away. Within the hour, he had them packing. He remembered hearing his grandmother call his aunts and uncle, letting them all know what was going on, with an emphasis to stay away.

A week later, they left their home in the suburb to come to this safe house with five other families. Two of them had kids his age, while one had a baby and the other had an adult son. The one family had a son a few years his senior at eighteen named Anthony, and a daughter named Mary that was his age. The other had a son named Samson that was a year younger than him, making him twelve. The fifth family didn’t bring anyone with them and consisted of an elderly couple.

The drive to the safe house had been terrifying. It was all he could do not to start crying as they sped through the city, bits of it broken, bits of it submerged, and so much of it overrun. It rained that day, and it made the world around them reek of decay. Mottled faces, pale bodies, bloated from drowning, shambling mindlessly.

Videos and pictures were _so_ different compared to the real thing. The stench that permeated into the car made him nauseous, and the constant groans… Nothing prepared him for that.

Not even a day after getting to the safe house, his grandfather and the other men, as well as Anthony, started work on barricades. Mary’s mother scoffed and said they were as strong as the levees during Anastasia, which started a huge fight. Caleb did what he could to distract the other kids from the fight, but it soured the air of the safe house quick. No one seemed to trust anyone after that.

By the third day, a dog had gotten in. Diseased. Dead. Not-dead. His grandfather managed to blow the beast’s brains out, but not before it bit him. Anthony and Mary’s father put him down and burned the body. His grandmother screamed and he had to hold her back. He had to watch it all, and nothing compared to the burning bile that trickled down his throat to his gut when he watched them kill him. A shot to the head, then decapitation. _Make sure they’re dead_. His grandfather’s words.

That night, his grandmother gave him the backpack. She kissed his forehead and apologized. Told him she loved him.

He asked about his parents, for the first time in so long. He knew, without her having to say it, this was goodbye. Stubborn as he was, he wasn’t letting her go without her revealing those secrets.

_“I think you’ll be with them soon, mon petit soldat,”_ she had said. _“Promise me you will not hate them. They did what was best for you.”_

It was an answer, and yet not, and all he was going to get. He knew as much. He made his promise and let her say her goodbye in her own way.

They buried her. Thirteen feet deep. Anthony said it was a precaution. Caleb didn’t care.

It didn’t take him long to get nervous after that. Something about the fact he was now completely alone

He had to go somewhere that wasn’t here. Somewhere that wasn’t Louisiana. That was what he decided as he watched them, unceremoniously, dump his grandmother’s body in the hole.

So, he grabbed his backpack, found his grandfather’s shotgun and machete and stored his plunder under his bed. He told himself he’d leave just before sunrise, so no one would notice. He woke up at three in the morning to darkness and a strangled scream from downstairs. He acted without thinking, grabbing his gear and running to find the other kids. He found Mary and Samson, the young mother, Emily, and her baby, but no sign of anyone else at first.

When he crept downstairs at last, he found Anthony, crouched over his mother’s dead body. His hands were covered in blood and gore. Caleb watched as the oldest boy, the adult son of the other family, tried to put down the zombie. He then watched, as Anthony ripped the boy’s throat open with his teeth before resuming his feast.

That was day five. Tuesday. By now, day seven, he’d lost Emily and her baby. Where the pair went, he had no idea. If she managed to escape, good for her, but he still had Mary and Samson to worry about. He couldn’t exactly go looking for her, especially if she didn’t want to be there. Besides, if she got out, then so could they.

Anthony’s parents both were like him now, though his mother was missing an arm and half her stomach. The older boy and his father had turned, but his mother was missing, as was Emily’s husband. Samson’s parents were also missing, but if he was being fair, he barely saw them to begin with. The other elderly couple were also unaccounted for.

At his count, that gave them five zombies to three kids, and only one was prepared by any measure. By sheer luck, none of the zombies seemed to make it to the garden shed, so for now, he had Mary and Samson holed up there while he came back to the house for supplies, not yet wanting to dig through his stored resources. Those would be for whenever, if they ever, escaped the plantation house.

The door to the kitchen creaked open and Caleb cursed himself. He thought he closed it, but he guessed he didn’t. He took a deep breath, regretting it instantly as the smell of decay and rot invaded his lungs. He wanted to gag, but managed to hold it back.

Anthony had chased him for an hour now. He guessed he finally found him. All good things, coming to an end and all. He took a deep breath. From ordinary boy, to action hero, he guessed.

He peered out and looked up to see Anthony’s face, still mostly intact save for a broken nose. His skin was a pearlescent pale, and his eyes milky-white, staring at everything and nothing. Caleb muttered a small prayer, aimed and took a shot. The kickback slammed him back, but his aim was true. Half the zombie’s skull splattered open, sending bone, tissue and gray matter splashing against the wall. Anthony collapsed and Caleb got to his feet.

Four confirmed zombies left.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was gonna abandon this until I just got a kudos from u/masqueraderose. Thanks for the motivation!

Alice lit her flashlight as she stepped up the stairs of the porch. What she wouldn’t give for a Samurai Edge right now. Kendo had been a genius with that gun, and the way Chris’s had looked was gorgeous. Perfectly altered to fit his specific style and tastes, she almost wanted to beg Kendo for one.

Now, she wished she did. She missed the one she had, but somewhere over time, it got lost. Destroyed. Wouldn’t surprise her, honestly. Raccoon’s erasure from the world took a lot with it.

Sometimes, she would joke it took her will to live.

She walked into the foyer, noticing the bloodstains on the hardwood floor instantly. Maybe her parents got out. Maybe this was pointless.

No, it wasn’t pointless. She couldn’t think that way. Umbrella’s cancer came to Louisiana. She would be the cure. Her final push against all the pain, all the disease. She would live and go to Paris, or die in a blaze of glory.

After all, what did she have to live for?

Well, that got dark, quick, she decided. Time to move on. Jill’s bad habit of brushing trauma off with jokes had stuck, _unfortunately_. She could almost picture Jason’s bemused smirk, and Chris—

Right. On task. Stay on task, Alice. Don’t go following the rabbit.

A large blood stain covered a wall across from the stairs in the hallway, a clear indicator of nothing good. A fight, maybe? She could picture her father having one last stand if needed. Or worse, her mother, a victim.

In the end, though, weren’t they all?

She started to go up the stairs when she heard a gunshot. Unless this new strain of victims still retained the ability to use guns, someone was still alive. There was hope yet.

She walked down the hallway, passing an entryway to a den. A quick glimpse showed her a table turned over and an abandoned fireplace, but no sign of life. Or lack thereof.

Two more doors; a dining room, then the kitchen. In the kitchen, she struck gold as her flashlight blasted the face of a boy, probably around thirteen. In front of him, a zombie laid in a heap. Bloody. Dead.

“Who are you?” the boy asked as she lowered the flashlight. The light caught on something behind him in the shadows, moving, and she grabbed his shoulder, yanking him closer and dropping the light. She fired two shots.

The zombie moaned as it collapsed.

“Holy shit—” The boy gasped. Alice chuckled and grabbed the flashlight off the floor.

“Ex-BSAA agent,” she said as the boy stared at her with too-big brown eyes. “Alice. You?”

“Caleb,” he said before going over to the fridge. He eagerly grabbed out a few things of juice, and things to make sandwiches with, along with odd snacks here and there. He tossed them into a box on the counter, then walked around her as if he _weren’t_in a house infested with zombies. Just an average kid, sneaking off with food.

“Where are you going, Caleb?” she asked, following him as he looked both ways out of the hallway. _Caleb_… “Where are your parents?”

“My grandparents are dead,” he said as he walked out into the hall. “I’m taking this to my friends. They’re someplace safe.”

“You know, I can help keep you safe,” Alice said, following him down the hall. “And what about your _parents_?”

“Dunno who my dad is,” Caleb said, digging into the box and grabbing a carrot. “My mom’s been missing ever since I was a baby.”

“Mm.” Poor kid. “C’mon, lead the way. I’ve got your back,” she said. He looked at her, almost as if he didn’t quite trust her. “I mean it. I’m not gonna let these things eat up on a bunch of kids.”

“Alright…” he said, clutching the box close. “Follow me.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.....I was not expecting people to actually read this.

Caleb couldn’t believe his luck. An ex-BSAA agent just _happened_to wander in? When he needed them the most? Sure, she seemed on the older side, but damn. She saved his life just now.

“So, uh, Alice, right?” he asked as they crept out to the backyard. “You fight these things before?”

“Since day one,” she said. “I was in Raccoon before it all fell apart.”

“Damn, you’re hardcore,” he said. She was kind of amazing. He couldn’t imagine doing what she did for _twenty years_. Hell, he only did it for a couple of days and he wanted to stop.

“Have to be,” she said. “Someone’s gotta put an end to this.”

“You’re like a superhero,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll try to stay outta your way.”

“Smart move,” she said. He led her to the garden shed, almost relieved to have found Alice. Someone like her on their side could be the difference between life and death. “You kids got a plan?”

Caleb paused, nodding his head to the door. She opened it and followed him inside. Mary brandished a pitchfork at them, her eyes wide, then relaxed when she saw him. At least she tried. Where was Samson?

Their refuge away from the shambling, reanimated corpses was spacious, at least. And had allowed for them to create a well-protected, in his opinion, sleeping area, which he was sure Samson was in. Food had been their only struggle.

“Just me,” he said. “I got food and a friend.”

“Alice,” the ex-BSAA agent said as Mary eyed her. “So there aren’t any adult survivors?”

“Not that I’ve found,” Caleb said as he set the box on the table. Samson came over, watching the woman with as much suspicion as Mary did. “There were six families total, five of which had kids. You had me, Mary and her brother Anthony, then Samson. One family had a baby, and the other had an adult son.”

“Where’s Anthony, then?”

No one said a word. Mary looked away, then turned back to the small fire they’d lit. Knowing Samson, she’d been left to tend to it while he slept.

“Well, my parents actually sent me this way, myself,” Alice said, putting her hand on her hip. “I had plane tickets for myself and my family to go to Paris, but it looks like there might be some open seats…”

Caleb looked at her, noticing he was almost eye level with her, and she smiled a warm smile that looked so familiar.

Why couldn’t he place it? Who was she? Who was her family?

“You’d really be willing to take a bunch of stray kids with you?” he asked. She flinched, but nodded.

“World’s fucked up enough, don’t you think?”

Caleb said nothing, looking over at Mary as he thought about her brother and the events that brought them there. It didn’t matter, he supposed, who she was or where she came from. She was there to help, and he was in no position to say no to help.


	5. Chapter 5

“Well, my parents actually sent me this way, myself,” Alice said, putting her hand on her hip. “I had plane tickets for myself and my family to go to Paris, but it looks like there might be some open seats…”

“You’d really be willing to take a bunch of stray kids with you?” he asked. She flinched. Strays. Aidan and Vanya had been strays, but these kids? They were different.

“World’s fucked up enough, don’t you think?” she asked. He looked away, then back at her.

God, he was tall. In the dancing firelight, she noticed his square jaw and too-serious features that maybe, someday, he would grow into. He was a cute enough kid, but familiar in ways she didn’t want to think about. In ways that dredged up the past.

* * *

_"Do I know you?" _

_No four words hurt harder than those. The cold, half-drunk indifference that delivered them added salt to the wounds. Alice almost couldn't believe what she heard. How could he forget her? Jason had warned her, but--_

_No. This still wasn't right. This was as far from right as it could get. It felt like someone had punched her in the gut, like her heart was going to come spilling from her lips to shatter on the wooden floor beneath her feet. For _years_ all she wanted to do was say what she'd been too afraid to say before. To look in those beautiful, soft eyes of his, and finally say it._

_"A-Alice," she said, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. "Alice McEvans. We... Worked together before."_

_Chris stared at her for several, long, silent moments. Around her, the world went still. Time itself had frozen for her._

_“I don’t know anyone named Alice, sorry,” he said before turning away from her and downing his drink. “You must have me confused with someone else.”_

* * *

“Alice?” Caleb asked and she looked at him with a start. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Defensive and short; she didn’t want him seeing the truth. He had enough to worry about, enough to deal with. She was just a sad, lonely woman. A broken woman.

“You’re crying,” he pointed out. Was she? Shit. “Is there something you wanna talk about?”

“No.” It needed to take a backseat to the night. Her _pain _needed to take a backseat to their salvation. They needed her.

“Grandma always said it’s no good to hold things up,” he said, very matter-of-factly. She scowled at him.

“Your grandmother—“ Wasn’t _wrong_, she supposed. “…You just remind me of someone, that’s all.”

“Did the zombies get him?” the other boy asked. The girl whacked him in the head.

“Samson!”

“No, no,” Alice said, shaking her head. It was hard not to laugh. “Valid question right now. And the answer is…”

They told her what made him lose his memories. She may as well have said yes. While they didn’t get him in such a blatant, crystal clear way, they got his team. They turned in front of him, and—No. She couldn’t imagine what that was like._ If I could go back in time and erase this virus from ever starting..._

“Yes.”

The girl, Mary, came over and hugged her. A quick, brief hug, but a small comfort all the same. Alice smiled down at her. She had a feeling she wouldn’t regret bringing these kids in with her, after all. Well, not this one, at least.

“They got my brother,” she whispered. “And I’m scared, but… I feel safer with you here.”

Alice’s heart melted. They needed a family, and she came here looking for hers, after all. God, what would Anwar say if he saw this? Would he compare her to his waylaid, unrequited love?

This sounded like something she would do, she guessed.

“So, what’s the plan?” she asked as Caleb set out to make sandwiches for the other children. She made a mental note that she’d have to get them real food soon.

“Wait it out till morning, now,” Caleb said. “With you here, I won’t be the only one fighting those things off. We can probably make a break for it. You got a car?”

_Oh, god_. Here it was. Why he was so familiar. _Who _he was. The final piece of the puzzle.

Beautiful brown eyes, but with too dark hair. Square jaw, but slightly pronounced cheekbones and a narrow, _barely _upturned nose. But more than that, his militaristic posture resembled _his _almost to the letter.

And the way he took control of the situation? How he protected the other two children? Those weren’t learned qualities. Those were inherent.

Caleb Redfield stood in front of her, without a damn clue that was who he was, or what that _meant_.

“Hello? Alice?”

The pieces fell into place too perfectly. She covered her mouth with her hand, trembling as she looked at him, as he waited for an answer, as reality weighed on her shoulders and closed her throat. How could she find words? How could she _say _it? _What _could she even say?

She was looking at the one thing Umbrella _hadn’t _taken from her, yet.


	6. Chapter 6

“Alice?” Caleb asked again, staring at the woman. “You still in there?”

“Ye-yeah, sorry,” she whispered as she looked away. “I have a car. We’ll leave in the morning.”

“Good,” Caleb said, frowning. Something seemed wrong. _Off_, even. She seemed off. Then again, twenty years of killing zombies probably changed a person. He couldn’t begin to contemplate the horrors she might’ve survived.

What was she like before the outbreak?

“I’ll need sleep, just a couple hours,” she said as she grabbed the chair by the workbench. For a garden shed, it was spacious. Even had a table in the center with a couple of stools. When they first set up camp, it had flower pots and painting supplies on it.

“I can keep watch ‘till about two,” Caleb said. “Will that be good?”

Alice frowned, jamming the chair under the door to serve as a makeshift barricade. She seemed less than pleased by the idea. He didn’t see any alternative, however.

“First sign of trouble, you wake me up,” she said. He nodded and Mary helped her set up a spot on the floor.

Caleb looked at his phone, barely holding a 3% charge still. 11:02 p.m. flashed across the screen atop of picture of his favorite game store. After sunrise, he would be saying goodbye to everything he ever knew for a life in, of all places, Paris. It was better than staying here, at least. Infested city, infested home. Would New Orleans face the same fate as Raccoon City?

God, he hoped not.

“Can we really trust her?” Samson asked. “Kinda crazy she just showed up like this.”

“Mr. and Mrs. LeBlanc said they had an adult daughter,” Caleb said. “Maybe it’s her.”

“Too convenient.”

“Shut up, Samson.”

“_Both _of you, shut it.” Alice’s words cut through their bickering like a knife, silencing them almost immediately. She must’ve been tired, to want to sleep so quickly. He couldn’t blame her, he guessed. She probably drove a long time to get there, only to find this mess.

He hoped he was right about her. In general, while he wasn’t gullible, he could be very trusting. It got him into some heartache before, and probably would again. If, of course, he survived the journey to Paris.

The snarling, wet sounds outside the shed told him the world might have other plans for him. He swallowed, hard, and gripped his grandfather’s shotgun so tight, his knuckles turned white from the pressure. He couldn’t be afraid.

He had to be strong.


End file.
